NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — A-list celebrity New Yorkers are joining their voices to those of Manhattan students, seniors and businesses in a last-ditch effort to save the Elizabeth Street Garden in Nolita.
Elizabeth Street Garden, a Manhattan oasis filled with trees, hydrangeas, hibiscuses and benches, has been engaged in a years-long battle with the city over the space, with municipal designs set on using the lot as affordable housing.
The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development plans to post an eviction notice next month, despite claims by garden executive director Joseph Riever that he has proposed numerous other locations for affordable housing, and has offered to work with the relevant city agencies to secure them.
Riever told 1010 WINS/WCBS 880 that the eviction notice is expected to come “All the while ignoring multiple alternative sites for affordable housing in this district. Some right around the corner.”
A letter-writing campaign—with hundreds already sent by NYC elementary school students, seniors and local organizations/businesses— to push Mayor Eric Adams into keeping the space a garden was joined this summer by influential artists Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Patti Smith.
De Niro, who began initiatives in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to bring people back into lower Manhattan, agrees that the need for housing persists, but so does the need for places like the garden that are part of NYC’s “unique cultural heritage and history.”
“I support increasing the availability of affordable housing (community leaders have identified alternate locations for development), but I’m also passionate about preserving the character of our neighborhoods,” De Niro wrote.
Eric, who often enjoys the garden, agrees. He told 1010 WINS/WCBS 880 that the need for affordable housing is real, but so is the need for the green space on Elizabeth Street.
“I think [affordable housing is] essential in the city. It's a crisis right now,” Eric said. “I don't think that we have to destroy a park to do it.”
Scorsese, who spent his childhood living in the neighborhood, implored Adams to halt the garden’s scheduled September demolition in his July 22 letter.
“When I was growing up, Little Italy was more or less a concrete jungle. We used to play in the alleys. There was no shade, no greenery, no respite,” Scorsese wrote. “The make-up of Little Italy may be different, but the need for a beautiful, refreshing oasis like the Elizabeth Street Garden has not changed.”
Elizabeth Street Garden, which has nearly 200 years of history as a public, recreational space and transformed into a sculpture garden after being leased to Riever's father Allan in 1990, also holds movie nights, poetry readings and concerts in order to enrich the community within which it dwells.
Patti Smith, a recipient of the Key to NYC, reflected on the community impact of the garden in her Aug. 14 letter.
“I have been privileged to read poetry and sing in the Garden’s serene yet celebratory gatherings, attended by people of all ages, friends and neighbors, tourists with their children,” she wrote.
Riever said that if Adams ever made his way over to the Elizabeth Street Garden, he would see “all the reason to preserve it.”
“He’d see a sense of community, a sense of nature and green space, and then really a work of art,” Riever said.
For more information on Elizabeth Street Garden, visit its website.